San Francisco: Twitter CEO Elon Musk said that he was not aware of the reasons behind Twitter India's actions regarding posts on a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said he did not know "what exactly happened" when Twitter took down content related to the documentary critical of PM Modi in January 2023.
The Indian government had taken strict actions after the BBC documentary critical of Modi's leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The documentary was banned in India and sharing any clips on social media was forbidden. The Centre also ordered Twitter to block over 50 tweets linking to the video.
Musk, who took charge of Twitter in October 2022, said that some rules related to social media content were "quite strict" in India. He was speaking in an interview with BBC broadcast live on Twitter Spaces.
When asked if Twitter took down some content at the behest of the Indian government, he said, "I am not aware of this particular situation… Don’t know what exactly happened with some content situations in India. The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict and we can’t go beyond the laws of the country. If we have a choice of either our people going to prison or we comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws."